Edmund Burke

Name: The Works of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke
Author: Edmund Burke

The Works of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke (1887)

Summary

“The Works of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke”, published in 1887, is a work by Edmund Burke. It explores elements such as Bristol, candidate and constituents.

Quotes from The Works of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke (Edmund Burke)

Edmund Burke, The Works of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke (1887)

“ To deliver an opinion is the right of all men; that of constituents is a weighty and respectable opinion, which a representative ought always to rejoice to hear, and which he ought always most seriously to consider. But authoritative instructions, mandates issued, which the member is bound blindly and implicitly to obey, to vote, and to argue for, though contrary to the clearest conviction of his judgment and conscience,—these are things utterly unknown to the laws of this land, and which arise from a fundamental mistake of the whole order and tenor of our Constitution. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Edmund Burke, The Works of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke (1887)

“ I found that our prosperity and dignity arose principally, if not solely, from two sources: our Constitution, and commerce. Both these I have spared no study to understand, and no endeavor to support.
The distinguishing part of our Constitution is its liberty. To preserve that liberty inviolate seems the particular duty and proper trust of a member of the House of Commons. But the liberty, the only liberty, I mean is a liberty connected with order: that not only exists along with order and virtue, but which cannot exist at all without them. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Edmund Burke, The Works of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke (1887)

“ From the first hour I was encouraged to court your favor, to this happy day of obtaining it, I have never promised you anything but humble and persevering endeavors to do my duty. The weight of that duty, I confess, makes me tremble; and whoever well considers what it is, of all things in the world, will fly from what has the least likeness to a positive and precipitate engagement. To be a good member of Parliament is, let me tell you, no easy task,—especially at this time, when there is so strong a disposition to run into the perilous extremes of servile compliance or wild popularity. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Edmund Burke, The Works of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke (1887)

“ We are members for a free country; and surely we all know that the machine of a free constitution is no simple thing, but as intricate and as delicate as it is valuable. We are members of a great and ancient monarchy; and we must preserve religiously the true, legal rights of the sovereign, which form the key-stone that binds together the noble and well-constructed arch of our empire and our Constitution. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Edmund Burke, The Works of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke (1887)

“ The means of recovering our affairs are not obvious. So many great questions of commerce, of finance, of constitution, and of policy are involved in this American deliberation, that I dare engage for nothing, but that I shall give it, without any predilection to former opinions, or any sinister bias whatsoever, the most honest and impartial consideration of which I am capable. The public has a full right to it ”

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Source: Wikisource

Edmund Burke, The Works of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke (1887)

“ I stood on the hustings (except when I gave my thanks to those who favored me with their votes) less like a candidate than an unconcerned spectator of a public proceeding. But here the face of things is altered. Here is an attempt for a general massacre of suffrages,—an attempt, by a promiscuous carnage of friends and foes, to exterminate above two thousand votes, including seven hundred polled for the gentleman himself who now complains, and who would destroy the friends whom he has obtained, only because he cannot obtain as many of them as he wishes. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Edmund Burke, The Works of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke (1887)

“ A constitution made up of balanced powers must ever be a critical thing. As such I mean to touch, that part of it which comes within my reach. I know my inability, and I wish for support from every quarter. In particular I shall aim at the friendship, and shall cultivate the best correspondence, of the worthy colleague you have given me.
I trouble you no farther than once more to thank you all: you, Gentlemen, for your favors; the candidates, for their temperate and polite behavior; and the sheriffs, for a conduct which may give a model for all who are in public stations. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Edmund Burke, The Works of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke (1887)

“ We do not presume to descant on the merit of these speeches; but as it is no less new than honorable to find a popular candidate, at a popular election, daring to avow his dissent to certain points that have been considered as very popular objects, and maintaining himself on the manly confidence of his own opinion, so we must say that it does great credit to the people of England, as it proves to the world, that, to insure their confidence, it is not necessary to flatter them, or to affect a subserviency to their passions or their prejudices. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Edmund Burke, The Works of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke (1887)

“ We seem to be approaching to a great crisis in our affairs, which calls for the whole wisdom of the wisest among us, without being able to assure ourselves that any wisdom can preserve us from many and great inconveniences. You know I speak of our unhappy contest with America. I confess, it is a matter on which I look down as from a precipice. It is difficult in itself, and it is rendered more intricate by a great variety of plans of conduct. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Edmund Burke, The Works of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke (1887)

“ I assure the worthy freemen, and this corporation, that, if the gentleman perseveres in the intentions which his present warmth dictates to him, I will attend their cause with diligence, and I hope with effect. For, if I know anything of myself, it is not my own interest in it, but my full conviction, that induces me to tell you, I think there is not a shadow of doubt in the case.
I do not imagine that you find me rash in declaring myself, or very forward in troubling you. From the beginning to the end of the election, I have kept silence in all matters of discussion. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Edmund Burke, The Works of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke (1887)

“ Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests, which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates; rout Parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole—where not local purposes, not local prejudices, ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole. You choose a member, indeed; but when you have chosen him, he is not member of Bristol, but he is a member of Parliament. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Edmund Burke, The Works of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke (1887)

“ I know nothing of Bristol but by the favors I have received, and the virtues I have seen exerted in it.
I shall ever retain, what I now feel, the most perfect and grateful attachment to my friends,—and I have no enmities, no resentments. I never can consider fidelity to engagements and constancy in friendships but with the highest approbation; even when those noble qualities are employed against my own pretensions. The gentleman who is not so fortunate as I have been in this contest enjoys, in this respect, a consolation full of honor both to himself and to his friends. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Edmund Burke, The Works of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke (1887)

“ I am not so old an acquaintance of yours as the worthy gentleman. Indeed, I could not have ventured on such kind of freedoms with you. But I am bound, and I will endeavor, to have justice done to the rights of freemen, to vindicate the former [1] part of my antagonist's conduct against his own present inclinations.
I owe myself, in all things, to all the freemen of this city. My particular friends have a demand on me that I should not deceive their expectations. Never was cause or man supported with more constancy, more activity, more spirit. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Edmund Burke, The Works of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke (1887)

“ From that time to this instant I have not slept; and if I should have the honor of being freely chosen by you, I hope I shall be as far from slumbering or sleeping, when your service requires me to be awake, as I have been in coming to offer myself a candidate for your favor. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Edmund Burke, The Works of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke (1887)

“ The other source of our power is commerce, of which you are so large a part, and which cannot exist, no more than your liberty, without a connection with many virtues. It has ever been a very particular and a very favorite object of my study, in its principles, and in its details. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Edmund Burke, The Works of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke (1887)

“ If the local constituent should have ' an interest or should form an hasty opinion evidently opposite to the real good of the rest of the community, the member for that place ought to be as far as any other from any endeavor to give it effect. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Edmund Burke, The Works of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke (1887)

“ But I cannot be satisfied without saying a little more in defence of the right you have to confer such a favor. The person that appeared here as counsel for the candidate who so long and so earnestly solicited your votes thinks proper to deny that a very great part of you have any votes to give. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Edmund Burke, The Works of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke (1887)

“ THE WORKS
OF
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
EDMUND BURKE
IN TWELVE VOLUMES
Volume the Second
London
JOHN C. NIMMO
14, King William Street, Strand, W. C.
MDCCCLXXXVII
CONTENTS OF VOL. II
Speech on American Taxation 1
Speeches on Arrival at Bristol and the Conclusion of the Poll 81
Speech on moving Resolutions for Conciliation with America 99
Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol, on the Affairs of America 187
Two Letters to Gentlemen of Bristol, on the Bills defending in Parliament relative to the Trade of Ireland 247 ”

Edmund Burke

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Quotes from The Works of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke (Edmund Burke)

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